Category: Paris Texas

         
Recently, the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce posted “The Objective” on our website;  explaining that our purpose was simply to be a voice in the community for those who, otherwise, would have no voice.

 To lend weight to our point, we asked: “Where else will you see, read or hear anything that dissents from or even question what citizens are told that relates  to a City of Paris program?”

What we didn’t know then, that we know now, is that “hear” is a really big word – in more ways than one.

Now, we are well aware that we were wrong in saying “hear” : There’s a lot of griping going on about how complaining doesn’t do a bit of good.

We apologize . . .

We should have simply expressed disappointment over the lack of Dissidence – 

Taxpayers would be better served by dissidence, as expressing opposition to is much better than hearing about wasting money. Dissidence is needed.

So, please, show some mercy! 

Other examples of needed dissidence is on allowing weeds to grow, and allowing most areas inside the city limits to be used as a dump ground. If nothing else, cut the weeds and stop the littering.

Even “”artificial intelligence” might agree –-–


But it is seeming that the human programmers of AI have a personal opinion or bias that may or may not agree, as it seems to accept that even plunder is a right of government. But plunder is taking by force the assets of others, whether its by law or at the point of a gun.  All of which make one question (or should) the intelligence of the creators, developers, and programmers of Artificial Intelligence. Some of the answers it provides dumb or even intelligent questions need questioning.

Dissidence is always a needed quality when facts are hard to find or mugged so badly that they are unrecognizable without questions.

 

How can we, in good consciousness, call Paris “a good city” or a “good place to live,” when too many policies and programs benefit some citizens, but not all? When the same policies and programs that are used as weapons against some citizens become favors granted to others? When public tax money (collected from all citizens) is given to a private endeavor or used to fund some socialist “public-private partnership”? And when and how did it occur that all data and information about some important endeavor or project be ignored and words be carefully crafted so that supporters can play “Whack-a-Mole” with any fact that might raise its intelligent head?

Dissidence requires questions. Without it, the idea may or may not have merit or value, and it certainly has no need for transparency.  IF so, it certainly does not need public tax money.

Ideas are not the enemy.

The lack of dissidence, not questioning every idea, is . . . (whether it is about control of litter or government plunder).

Actually, the verdict on Paris is in: Weeds and litter are everywhere; ordinances and policies are selectively enforced or ignored or in conflict with other laws or lawful policies; too many of our neighborhoods are full of blight, decay, rot, and historical obsolescence; there are more rental properties than single-family home ownership; and more empty houses and vacant business-buildings than ever.

IF we really wanted to make Paris beautiful, we’d be taking down utility poles instead of putting them up and butchering trees.

Paris had the potential to be a good city and a good place to live. Once upon a time, Paris was the largest city in a 100-mile circle of NE Texas and SE Oklahoma; the North Star of Texas. But that was, as the song says, “Once Upon a Time, So Very Long Ago … “

Lamar County population is growing; the population inside the city limits of Paris, isn’t – and years of not questioning the ideas have made this the reality.

The lack of dissidence is the reason why.

                                                                        return to the Paris Texas Chamber  

 

Typically, a master planned community (mpc). . .

 . . . . is on a large plot of land where a developer offers an array of amenities, including golf courses, restaurants, shops, miles of hiking trails, parks, community events, and more;  just about everything you need within a community. The Forestbrook Estates – a City of Paris local partner – claims to be a MPC.

Whether or not it is, as claimed, a mpc, the smell of the selling sizzle covers up the fact that local taxpayers, who have paid the bills for years, are now on the hook for an estimated $20 million to cover the developer’s cost.

Why?

 

There’s no guarantee it will pay . . . .

. . . and $20 million is over one-third of the current city budget. IF its such a good deal, why do the developers need the Paris taxpayers to guarantee them a profit?

The major draw of a master planned community is that you can walk from your home to the gym, shoot a round of golf, grab a drink at the clubhouse, play at the park, take your kids to school, all available for residents and are kept up-to-date by funds collected by a homeowners association (HOA). 

IF there’s no HOA, will taxpayers – who seems to be stuck paying for everything else – be stuck with maintaining the streets, hauling off trash, repairing water and sewer leaks, and other such day-by-day expenses? And surprising us all by getting rid of litter?

The reported first phase of the nearly 200-acres of the Forestbrook development will consist of 87 of the 471 residential lots. This doesn’t seem to leave much room for playgrounds, schools, gyms, golf, clubhouses, parks, and all the promised related retail and commercial development; plus, the rights-of-way for utilities and streets, drainage, etc. 

The Paris Texas Chamber doesn’t know if a HOA is in the plans, nor do we have the least idea about what the proposed development will actually offer or who are the developers. We do know, however, that the endeavor itself is not as important as the centuries-old concept for selling democratic socialism – a private-public partnership, which is an insult to to the American Idea of self-responsibility and the need for accountability of one’s personal actions.

 

Private-public partnerships are not how you limit government.

IF the City of Paris cannot or will not guarantee every citizens’ debt, why is it guaranteeing the debt of a selected few based on Happy Talk promises and the only collateral being the taxpayer’s guarantee?

Where does the city, and government in general, get the right to pick and choose economic winners?

Its so much the key question that we don’t even understand those individuals who believe that robbing Pete to pay Paul is a good idea – unless they’re Paul.

Do banks even make development loans anymore? If not, why not? IF they can’t make community development loans, why are they needed?  (Community development is economic development, and consumer loans only get people deeper into personal debt.) So, what purpose do banks now fill – other than paying a little bit of interest on CDs in order to loan the  money at a higher interest rate to some government-guaranteed “too big to fail” Big Business? 

Isn’t government basically guaranteeing the success of banks?

Why are taxpayers forced to guarantee some developer’s debt?

 

Forced compliance is destroying the 13th Amendment of the Constitution . . . .

. . . . and the bad decisions keep coming: As the Paris Chamber warned years ago, thanks to idiots in the Texas legislature, anything can now be economic development. 

The City of Paris has extended its partnership with Palma Holdings, LLC; subsidizing “a residential 5 in 5 Housing Infill Development program” that the city calls economic development. Basically, its low-income single-family instant-slum housing offered at an estimated $200,000 sales price. Five or more have been built with no reported sales, but ten more were recently approved for construction.

Unfortunately, a $200,000 home is not affordable for most low-income families, but as taxpayer subsidized Section 8 housing, it can become a long-time profit center for a private developer. 

It all makes some wonder about sanity.     

 

 

A CONSPIRACY REQUIRES EVERYTHING BUT A BACKBONE.


A conspiracy allows the participants to slide up sideways to something they know they shouldn’t be doing.

Some things the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce do know, but we never claim to know everything.  There is a whale of a difference in the two. And one of the things we do know is that a conspiracy may require everything but a backbone.

We also know when infringement on our name is evident (as seen above). 

We realize, as do others, that on  another front,  more then one someone approved the name, design, and decision to deliberately use a Paris Lamar County Chamber of Commerce logo for the Lamar County Chamber of Commerce webpage, stationery, advertising, etc.

We’ve known it since it first started in 2016. It’s amusing, in a pitiful sort of way. But what does it say about the membership of what-used-to-be-the Lamar County Chamber?  

Basically, the Paris Texas Chamber cannot or does not want to believe that the majority of that organization’s members approve such behavior.  IF they do . . . .

Since 1922, the year socialist author Sinclair Lewis’ book, Babbitt became a national best-seller, the “booster clubs”, chambers of commerce, and other such community organizations, have had to fight a bad reputation.

Like most things public, some do deserve a bad reputation; most don’t.

The good ones work to bring their communities together. They are responsible, honest and dependable organizations with their own self-defined objectives for the community they serve. They know their role: They establish goals to try and meet their objective.

They succeed when they are not trying to be both fish and fowl, but just the sizzle on the steak they’re cooking.

Those community and economic organizations, wiggling like an earthworm trying to escape the hook, that claim they are the first rose of spring, the needed rain on summer’s hottest days, the painter of fall colors, the designers of the winning snowflake of winter, trying to be everything, while promising they are the only way to salvation, are the ones with questionable identities. 

            They are the Walter Mitty’s of community organizations.

. . . .  a conspiracy can be identified as a continuation of social traditions that work to the advantage of certain groups and to the disadvantage of certain other groups. If the intent of a conspiracy exists for the purpose of perpetuating the advantage, then there is a conspiracy even if the details are never agreed to aloud by all the participants.

It’s why a conspiracy doesn’t require a backbone.

Name infringement, of course, is a “no-no!” Not only is it unethical, but illegal in some cases. So are Domain Squatters (when people knowingly use your brand name with other extensions).

Throw in the “conspiracy theory” to deny everything, and it is still fairly decisive that a conspiracy has – and is – actually producing political events that those engaged in the conspiracy cannot begin to reasonable claim are false.

                                                          return to Paris-Lamar County Chamber of Commerce  (tsk-tsk-tsk!)

 Links:

Affordable Housing

The Objective